113) The May 2, 1915 Telegram Leading to Relocation

 

 Pro-Armenians like to present the idea that the "annihilation" of the Armenians had been in the works for a long time. They offer all sorts of speculative theories, like "pan-Turanism," neglecting the facts in their typically deceptive style.

 

The facts are: after some six centuries where Armenians and Turks co-existed peacefully, with no "racial hatred" built into the Turkish mentality, Armenians began to terrorize the Ottoman population beginning in the mid-to-late 19th century... in hopes of inciting violence against their own people, so that the European powers could step in and fulfill the Armenians' nationalistic ambitions.

 

The Armenians were ready to go with their long-planned betrayal at the outset of WWI, after some forty years of performing terrorist acts. Their first rebellion occurred in Van, days after Russia had declared war in November of 1914. Outbreaks by Armenians took place all over the land. The Turks were fighting a desperate war against mighty world soperpowers on multiple fronts. The combined Armenian forces of 200,000 (according to Boghos Nubar; 50,000 from Ottoman-Armenians behind-the-lines) posed a significant military threat. Something had to be done.

 

 

Mary Lee Settle  gave an accurate portrayal of a major straw breaking the camel's back, in her Turkish Reflections: A Biography Of A Place (New York, Prentice Hall Press, 1991); there were several Van revolts since Nov. 1914, and here she is describing (p.190) the one from April of the following year, which led to the April 24 "Armenian Date of Doom" arrests of 235 Armenian ringleaders in Istanbul :

 

 It was a graveyard the size of a town, all that is left
of the Turkish section of ancient Van after the revolt when the Armenian guerrillas raised the standard of the Republic of Armenia in the city Van in April 1915.

 

For years the imperial Russian government had backed Armenian
nationalism in the area in the hope of having and indigenous population to come over to them when they succeeded, after so long, in taking the Dardanelles. It was to be the last series of wars czarist government fought, including the Crimean War, to gain access to the Mediterranean. When the Russian army retreated, hordes of Armenians went with them. The whole of the Eastern Front had become a place of disease' starvation' a no-man's land. When the Armenians left Van, they fired the Turkish section and in a few days, killed thirty thousand Muslims, including Armenians who had become Muslims, but mostly Turks. It was during this revolt that the order went out to result that Ottoman force clear the Armenian population from the war zone, with its tragic, unforgivable results. They were forced out of the grave they had made of Van and from all the country around, those who had not followed the Russians! The awful moving march to the coast began of neglect, starvation and tragic cruelty. I think that the march has gone on ever since in both the minds of the Armenians and the Turks, never to end, never to be forgotten by either of them.

 

  There was a series of Van disturbances before April, 1915, documented by internal communications never intended to have been publicized. From "The Armenian File":

 

On 4 March 1915, the head official of the district of Mahmudi in the province of Van sent the following telegram to the Ministry of the Interior:

 

 

"As a result of the investigation carried out after our kaza was taken back from the enemy, the following profile with regard to the torture and massacre which took place emerges:

 

 

Those who were killed in the village of Merkehu 41 men,14 women
Those who were killed after having been raped 4 women
Those who were killed in the village of Ishtuju 7 men, 4 women
Those who are alive among those who have been raped 5 women
The wounded 3 men, 2 women

 

A telegram dated 16 March sent by the Van Gendarmerie Division Command stated that in the kaza of Shatak of the province of Van, Armenians had attacked the gendarmerie station and the soldiers and had destroyed the telegraph lines, and that armed confrontations had occurred between the forces sent to the area and the Armenians. The incident began when a revolutionary teacher named Osep was caught with his weapon.

 

 

On 20 March, the Governor of Van stated: "In all parts of the province armed confrontations continued until the evening and have now increased. It is thought that the rebels number more than 2,000. We are trying to crush the rebellion."

 

 

 What would any nation have done, under the circumstances?

 

The Ottomans, in fact, were most patient in dealing with their treacherous Armenian community. Here they were, a whole half-year after the first major Armenian insurrection, and they pretty much left the Armenians alone. That is pretty incredible.

 

If the Ottomans were of the mind to do away with their Armenians, with plans underway since before the war, why would they have waited so long?

 

Remember, another of the dishonest pro-Armenian explanations is that "war presents an excellent cover for genocide." If this was the case, the Turks would have hopped aboard the genocide plan immediately at the outset of war.

 

On 24 April, the Van governor sent the following telegram to the Ministry of the Interior: "Until now approximately 4,000 insurgent Armenians have been brought to the region from the vicinity. The rebels are engaged in highway robbery, attack the neighbouring villages and burn them. It is impossible to prevent this. Now many women and children are left homeless. It is not possible nor suitable to relocate them in tribal villages in the vicinity. Would it be convenient to begin sending them to the western provinces?"

 

Note on the "Date of Doom" the idea set forth was not the "deportation" of the Armenians, but the relocation of the Turks... as a safety measure against the bloodthirsty traitors among their midst!

 

The Armenian File informs us of further chronology of events:

 

"On 8 May, the Armenians began their offensive and started burning down the Muslim quarters. Upon this, the Governor, Jevdet Bey, ordered the evacuation of Van. On 17 May, the Turkish soldiers left Van, then the Armenians began to set fire to the Turkish quarters which had been evacuated. The Russians then entered Van. (The booklet entitled Zeve about the Van rebellion is worth reading.)"

 

It is startling that the Ottomans were only slowly contemplating the step to take, against their traitors... the Armenian community, where friend from foe was hard to tell apart. Even the loyal Armenians had learned the price for not cooperating with their fanatical Dashnak/Hunchak leaders.
"The first indication of the relocation decision." 

 

 From The Armenian File:

 

On 2 May, before the fall of Van, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Enver Pasha, sent the following message to the Minister of the Interior, Talat Bey:

 

Around lake Van, and in specific areas known by the Governor of Van, Armenians are constantly gathered and prepared to continue their insurrection. I am convinced that these Armenians who have gathered must be removed from these areas, and that the rebellion's nest must be destroyed. According to the information provided by the 3rd Army Command, the Russians brought the Muslims within their borders into our country under wretched and miserable conditions, on 20 April 1915. In order to respond to this, as well as to reach the goal I have stated above, it is necessary to either send these Armenians and their families to Russia, or to disperse them within Anatolia. I request that the most suitable of these two alternatives be chosen and carried out. If there is no inconvenience I would prefer that the families of the rebels and the population of the region in rebellion are sent outside our borders and that the Muslim community brought into our borders from abroad are relocated to their place.

 

This message is the first indication of the relocation decision.

 

 Enver Pasha urged consideration of two options. One was the "deportation" that he preferred (the word indicates banishment outside a country's borders) in the same cruel manner of the Russians with their innocent, non-treacherous Muslims. The other was relocation elsewhere in the empire, until the danger of the war blew over. (Proven by a document in the British archives from the Armenian Patriarch in 1921, testifying that there were 625,000 Armenians in the Ottoman Empire before the implementation of Sevres. Many had returned from their temporary relocation zones.)

 

Things went wrong — it was war, with chaos and corruption looming (not to mention the human emotion of "revenge" by locals, angered at the Armenians' treachery) — but the decision the Ottomans took was certainly a humanitarian one, compared with simply kicking the Armenians out of their homes forever. (It is true a lot of Armenians decided not to come back to their homes. Many who had returned left for other pastures, some out of fear, and others thanks to the widely opening doors through sympathetic co-religionists in the West. But even these Armenians were given a chance to return, with treaties like the one from Gumru/Alexandropol.)

 

Such are the historical facts judgments need to be made by. But "historical facts" is the last thing genocide-obsessed Armenians want to hear, along with their deceptive allies in the genocide industry.
  

 

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© Holdwater 

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